Performing Arts

Esther Dischereit

Esther Dischereit’s poetry, essays, operas, and radio plays incorporate her experiences as “other,” growing up Jewish in post-war Germany.

November 5, 2014

Sophie Tucker: All About That Bass

by Eliza Bayroff

Sophie Tucker was a heavyweight performer—in every sense of the word. Right up to her death in 1966 at age 82, Tucker, the so-called “Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” took her act worldwide, combining her singing talents and bawdy humor into a legendary act that would manage to survive the demise of vaudeville and the dawn of the television age—all while remaining determinedly and definitively plus-sized.

Topics: Feminism, Performing Arts

April 25, 2012

Catching up with Vanessa Hidary, the Hebrew Mamita

by Melissa Scholten-Gutierrez

Baruch Atah Adonai
Viva Puerto Rico Ha'olam
Hahmotzee , Fight The Power
Me'en Haaretz
AMEN.

Topics: Performing Arts, Poetry

April 24, 2012

The Burlesque Poetess: A Jewess with "Artitude"

by Leah Berkenwald

Jojo Lazar is a Boston-based multimedia visual and performance artist with a dizzying portfolio of projects. She puts her MFA in Poetry and love of vaudeville to work performing as “The Burlesque Poetess.” She plays the ukulele in the steam-crunk band, “Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys,” and with Meff in “The Tiny Instrument Revue” and in “WHY ARE THOSE GIRLS SO LOUD it’s ‘cos we’re jewish,” with fellow Jewish writer/performer Amy Macabre.

Topics: Music, Performing Arts, Poetry

October 7, 2011

Celebrating "The Little Bride" with readings and song

by Ellen K. Rothman

Anyone who knows me would have been surprised to see me walking down Mass Ave in Cambridge the other night and into a hip club on the edge of the M.I.T.campus. What was I doing there?

Topics: Music, Performing Arts, Fiction

Hannah Block Plays Piano, February 26, 2005

A night to honor Hannah Block

November 8, 2010

North Carolinians came together on November 8, 1997, to honor one the state’s civic leaders and pathbreaking women.

Shari Lewis

Shari Lewis was a ventriloquist, symphony conductor, author, producer, and performer. She and her puppet friends won numerous awards. She was asked by former first ladies Nancy Reagan and Rosalyn Carter to be the sole performer at the annual White House Christmas party for the children of the Diplomatic Corps, and she emceed the annual White House Easter festival for the Bushes and the Clintons.

Artists: Israeli, 1970 to the Present

The 1970s were a conceptual and political period in Israeli art. Art during these years expressed the plural form—of the nation, the society and of modern art.

November 29, 2007

From Tekhines to Tap Dance

by Jordan Namerow

Ever seen women with headscarves doing Vaudeville? Last week's Forward featured an article about Atara, an association of Torah observant artists whose new mission is to bring Orthodox female artists and performers together to nurture their creative expression -- be it through theatre, music, art, spoken word, etc. -- within a halachic framework.

Topics: Art, Performing Arts, Jewish Law, Judaism-Orthodox

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